Clarification added June 5, 2009
Users of the town transfer station, known as “the dump” to longtime Harvard residents, will find little changed in their renewal notices for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1. Fees for a transfer station permit and for disposing of “pay-as-you-throw” items, from carpets to refrigerators, are unchanged. The rules and regulations governing it have been consolidated into a single document, which was approved by the Board of Selectmen Tuesday, May 26.
“The big changes [to the rules and regulations] are not really changes, they’re clarifications,” said Clark in a telephone interview.
The fee for a transfer station permit, good for a year, is once again $235 if purchased before June 30. Dumpers who wait until July will pay $260, and after August 1 the fee jumps to $290. Seniors will pay $25 when they act before June 30, and once again a free “recycle-only” permit will be offered. Currently the town distributes roughly 2,000 dump permits and 100 “recycle-only” permits each year.
The transfer station is open only to residents of Harvard, but for the first time nonresidents who are immediate relatives of town seniors will be allowed to apply for one full-price permit. Town residents who live with a senior or are immediate relatives of seniors will be allowed to use one of the two $25 stickers made available to their elders.
“Let’s say I’m a widow and I live by myself. Can I give one of my stickers to my son?” asked Clark. The answer is yes. “We’re trying to be accommodating to seniors.”
“Nonresidents should not be able to get a sticker, period” says Clark, a sentiment that is shared by the rest of the Board of Selectmen. The town operates the dump as a service, he says. “It costs the town money to haul trash away, but taxpayers are not charged for those services.” At the current fee, the dump is a break-even operation, and compares favorably with the amount “curbside” trash services charge their customers.
The issue of who qualifies for a transfer station sticker has been the source of “a handful of complaints at the Town Hall and at the dump, and we’re just trying to codify what the rules are,” said Clark. “They were never spelled out. They were implied.” On any given Saturday, he said, an estimated 20 to 40 cars tried to make illegal use of the dump. In addition to making regulations as clear as possible he says, the new arrangement of compactors forces all users to pass by an observation station from which cars can be monitored.
Clark says he gets grief from fellow board members who feel the transfer station issues are “a mundane thing.”
“The reality for our town, different from any other town, is that the dump is a social place, a gathering place,” says Clark, “and an important part of our community. Strange as it is, we campaign there; we sell Girl Scout cookies there; we have car washes there. It’s the dump!…It is one of the few places you can meet just about anybody you don’t normally meet, to catch up, get the news, get the scuttlebutt.”
If you were to look at the amount of public comment focused on the dump over the past year, he added, “you’d think it was probably the most important thing in town.”
Clarification: The only way a nonsenior citizen can get a senior parent’s discounted dump sticker put on his or her car is to live with that senior. Any vehicle that is registered at the same address as the principle residence of a senior (someone older than 65) in town qualifies.
Arecent mailing sent to all households outlines the policy: “Seniors (65 years old on or before June 30, 2009) pay $25 for up to two permits (a third permit is available for $25). The address for all vehicle registrations receiving this discount must be the same as the senior whose principle residence is in Harvard for each permit issued. Nonresidents may apply for one full-price permit only if they are an immediate relative of a senior citizen whose principle residence is in Harvard.”
